Auction Description

We are delighted to offer for sale the primary contents of the Late Syd Barrett’s Cambridge home and would like to thank his family for all the help and advice they have given us with cataloguing his effects. Roger Keith (Syd) Barrett January 1946 - July 2006 was one of the most important and influential musicians in London’s underground music scene of the late sixties. He was a founding member of, and the original songwriter for, Pink Floyd. Roger grew up in a happy family in Cambridge. As a teenager, he was given the nickname ‘Sid’ after the drummer Sid Barrett, he personalised it by changing the spelling to ‘Syd’. In 1964 Syd enrolled at Camberwell Art School where he proved a talented artist. It was in 1965 that his road to fame began, when he joined a band that, after several changes of name and line up, became Pink Floyd. As the band became increasingly famous he began to suffer the pressures of this fame and the associated rock star lifestyle. After just two years he left the band and withdrew from the public eye. Syd found contentment when he returned to Cambridge to live an anonymous and generally solitary life where he was able to continue with his painting. Syd’s desire to live firmly in the present left him baffled by the unbidden interest paid to him by journalists and fans alike. This, and his total disinterest in materialism, had a profound affect on his art. He would paint and, having finished a painting, photograph it and destroy the canvas. This makes the few paintings in this sale of great significance. Syd also entertained a keen interest in DIY which is evidenced in many of the lots offered here; although it is apparent that, while Syd was keen to make and customise functional pieces, he was also, perhaps, ready to treat them with some humour at the expense of craftsmanship. It is planned that some of the monies raised from the sale of Syd’s effects will be used for educational development within the art world.